NewUniversal: Shockfront #2 (Marvel – Ellis / Kurth / Hennessy / Chuckry)
A charity football game turns into a nightmare when quarterback Jack Magniconte inadvertently kills another player. Is he the newest human to manifest a superpower glyph? And more to the point, will Ken Connell— who himself manifested the “Starbrand” glyph—and Izzy Randall — possessor of the “Nightmask” glyph—reach Magniconte before he’s killed in the government’s efforts to stop a superhuman Armageddon?
Warren Ellis continues his incredible interpretation of the 80’s New Universe titles. One of the many things I am really enjoying here is that we are getting a really good in-depth story from Ellis, that isn’t overly-dark. Sometimes, the modern master story-tellers have decided that the only good story is one that goes so deep into the soul of darkness that we can’t see anything at all. Not don’t get me wrong, Shockfront has the drama, action and violence that you might expect from a Warren Ellis book, but it’s “ookiness” is not so over the top that it drowns out the story.
Steve Kurth does an outstanding job showing his versatility as an artist here, close-ups to landscape action, from realistic to special-effects artsy, Kurth delivers!
In this issue, we get quite a few revelations about the upcoming conflict. Jennifer Swan (Project: Spitfire) finds out there are many more superhuman anomalies than the original three. Jack Magniconte not only gains his powers on the football field in a disastrous way but also learns first hand what is out to stop the “superhuman” outbreak and to what extremes they are willing to go. And most intriguing is Charlotte Beck, and through her eyes the reader gets more of a backstory on the NewUniversal world and it’s placement as an “alternate timeline”. She is apparently not from this world and is trying to find the divergence point between this world and the “real world”. This could prove a great plot device and it’s the first time this has been hinted at in the whole series. The sign of a great series is that there is always something fresh.
If you are like me and a fan of the Heroes TV show and yet you aren’t reading NewUniversal, then you are missing what could filling your Sylar hole!
Issue Grade: A
Series Grade: A
